LensCrafters

This review is only for the customer service in the optician area not for the quality of the lens manufacturing.
It should have been easy, as I was just shopping for a backup spare pair of glasses (so lowered expectations) and as I already had a valid Rx and found the frames I liked and that I felt fit myself. Never was I approached once while I went brought my selection process of about 12 – 15 minutes, that is alright but you should at least greet new customers.
I walked up to the counter, frames and Rx in hand and asked for help. The two folks at the counter said «have a seat in the grey chair and we’ll be right with you.»
15 minutes pass and neither one of them come over or move at all. The other two associates helping other patrons finish with their folks and don’t come over or acknowledge me.
It was probably for the best as I was able to overhear the problems the other customers were experiencing. Lens mad wrong (you’ll have to come back) and the computer system losing the other guys records.
During that last encounter the LensCrafters associate actually said «hey, we promise to make glasses in hour but not to have the process take an hour» as he dealt with the poor guy who obviously was also going to have to come back or continue to wait.
I cut my losses and left before falling further into the customer service black hole.

Do not use this particular LensCrafters for your eye care needs. They are very disorganized, and have failed to provide expert care in my opinion on three occasions now. I made an appointment for an eye exam and a lens fitting for contacts online, the appointments were confirmed through email and a phone call on the day before the appointment. When I arrived, I had to wait, which was not a big deal, as I understand Dr’s office’s often fall behind, however the woman who helped me was so on Auto-​Pilot that when I was trying to ask a question or answer one of hers, she completely ignored me and continued on with her script. After later interactions with her, I found that this is how she always operates, and it is extremely frustrating and not helpful at all. She then informed me that I was going to have to come back a different day for my contact lens fitting even though I had one scheduled for that day and time. I will say the Dr’s both were very personable and thorough, which was the only redeeming factor for this review, however I only interacted with them for approximately 10 minutes in total. I was told that they were going to have to order my trial contacts and I would get a call when they were in. 4 weeks went by!!! I finally called, and found that they never ordered the trials! 2 more weeks went by and I was called and scheduled an appointment for the following day to have a lens fitting. Mind you, I have been wearing these same contact lenses for 14 years, and did not need to have a fitting as nothing about my prescription changed from the previous 4 years! When I arrived for my second appointment, they could not find my chart, even though I spoke on the phone with them the day before and they were supposedly looking at it. I waited for 45 minutes, when I needed to go back to work, for a fitting that I did not need to have, and saw the dr for 2 minutes to check the fit. I once again had to interact with said robot lady and was extremely frustrated by the time I was ready to leave. They placed my contact order in my cart supposedly so that I could call back and order them when my Flex Account money came through. When I called back, they could not find my chart, or my order in their system and had to call me back in order for me to place my order. Said robot lady also answered the phone during this process and could not provide me with any answers to my questions because it was not in her script. It has been nothing but a headache dealing with this LensCrafters, which is very disappointing as I have used other LensCrafters in the past with wonderful results.

Sad story, really. I used to know the manager of the Lenscrafters in Eastview Mall, and used to use Lenscrafters exclusively for my eyewear when I needed glasses (that’s another story). I learned (the hard way, is there any other way?) that, like the car dealers, Lenscrafters likes upsell customers to higher margin products like «high index» lenses, anti-​glare, Crizal etc. etc. These add-​ons to a glasses order will bring the total cost to a much higher level.
While I understand that multifocal lenses cost more than ones for single vision, the straw that broke the camels back (for me) was when my 20 year old son needed replacement lenses for his frames… they 1) gave him the wrong prescription 2) made him revisit the store three times 3) Oversold him hook, line and sinker. The resultant mess left him with a pair of glasses that didn’t fit or feel right.
Since he was just about to head back to college (over six hours away), we sped over to Empire Vision with his (corrected) prescription and picked up a pair of their $ 69.95 glasses. Not only were they a better fit, the lenses they used (the non-​fancy non-​high index non-​featherweight lenses) were actually better than those used by Lenscrafters.
Bottom line? Lenscrafters ain’t what they used to be, at least for this family. Perhaps it’s a telling sign (literally) that there WAS a sign posted at the store stating «Optometrist Wanted».

Helpful staff though some are a bit under-​trained (I was delayed an additional 45 minutes waiting for medical records to be faxed when I observed a staff member take their printer/​fax/​copier offline for printing due to not knowing how to operate the machine to make a copy)
On the plus side — even though they have policies in place that prevented me from being able to utilize them, the staff member that helped me was very helpful in directing me to where I could be best served — which worked out exceedingly well in the end.
So while there are a few flaws, I would certainly trust their care and direction.